Fears of Mad-Cow Disease May Push FDA
To Widen Ban on European Blood Donors

By

Jill Carroll Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Updated May 21, 2001 12:01 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration is considering sharply expanding the pool of people ineligible to donate blood due to concerns about potentially spreading the human form of mad-cow disease through blood supplies.

The current FDA donor ban applies only to people who have spent a total of six months or more in the United Kingdom from 1980 to 1996, the height of the country's mad-cow epidemic. The agency confirmed that it is now weighing a ban on donors who have spent time anywhere in Europe, though officials...